Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright is an American architect born on June 8, 1867 in Wisconsin who developed his own unique architectural style. The style was very organic and distinctly American. An outdoorsy child, Wright fell deeply in love with the Wisconsin landscape he explored as a boy. "The modeling of the hills, the weaving and fabric that clings to them, the look of it all in tender green or covered with snow or in full glow of summer that bursts into the glorious blaze of autumn," he later reminisced. "I still feel myself as much a part of it as the trees and birds and bees are, and the red barns." In 1885, the year Wright graduated from public high school in Madison, his parents divorced and his father moved away, never to be heard from again. That year, Wright enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to study civil engineering; in order to pay his tuition and help support his family, he worked for the dean of the engineering department and assisted the acclaimed architect Joseph Silsbee with the construction of the Unity Chapel. The experience convinced Wright that he wanted to become an architect, and in 1887 he dropped out of school to go to work for Silsbee in Chicago. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. His work includes original and innovative examples of many building types, including offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums. Wright also designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass. Fallingwater Residence In 1935, Wright announced his return to the profession in dramatic fashion in 1935 with Fallingwater, a residence for Pittsburgh's acclaimed Kaufmann family. Shockingly original and astonishingly beautiful, Fallingwater is marked by a series of cantilevered balconies and terraces constructed atop a waterfall in rural
southwestern Pennsylvania. It remains one of Wright's most celebrated works, a national landmark that is widely considered one of the most beautiful homes ever built. Then in the late 1930s, Wright constructed about 60 middle-income homes known as "Usonian Houses." The aesthetic precursor to the modern "ranch house," these sparse yet elegant houses employed several revolutionary design features such as solar heating, natural cooling and "carports" for automobile storage. During his later years, Wright also turned increasingly to designing public buildings in addition to private homes. He designed the famous SC Johnson Wax Administration Building that opened in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1939. In 1938, Wright put forth a stunning design for the Monona Terrace Civic Center overlooking Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, but he failed to secure public funding for the project. In 1992, 33 years after the architect's death, the state finally approved funding for the building's construction, which was completed in 1997, nearly 60 years after Wright finished his designs. In 1943, Wright began a project that consumed the last 16 years of his life designing the Guggenheim Museum of modern and contemporary art in New York City. "For the first time art will be seen as if through an open window, and, of all places, in New York. It astounds me," Wright said upon receiving the commission. An enormous white cylindrical building spiraling upward into a Plexiglass dome, the museum consists of a single gallery along a ramp that coils up from the ground floor. While Lloyd's design was highly controversial at the time, it is now revered as one of New York City's finest buildings. Wright's Death Frank Lloyd Wright passed away on April 9, 1959, at the age 91, six months before the Guggenheim opened its doors. Wright is widely considered the greatest architect of the 20th century, and the greatest American architect of all time. He perfected a distinctly American style of architecture that emphasized simplicity and natural beauty in contrast to the elaborate and ornate architecture that had prevailed in Europe. With seemingly superhuman energy and persistence, Wright designed more than 1,100 buildings during his lifetime, nearly one third of which he designed during his last decade. The historian Robert Twombly wrote of Wright, "His surge of creativity after two decades of frustration was one of the
most dramatic resuscitations in American art history, made more impressive by the fact that Wright was seventy years old in 1937." Wright lives on through the beautiful buildings he designed, as well as through the powerful and enduring idea that guided all of his work that buildings should serve to honor and enhance the natural beauty surrounding them. "I would like to have a free architecture," Wright wrote. "Architecture that belonged where you see it standing and is a grace to the landscape instead of a disgrace."
Frank Lloyd Wright Blog Post Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, probably the most famous American architect, born in 1867. Wright wanted his buildings to rise naturally from the land that surrounded them, as you ll see. His buildings are often low to the ground and comprised of straight lines forming geometrical patterns. They are not symmetrical. He began his architectural career in Oak Park, Illinois where he designed the Unity Temple and many homes. Since I have been to Oak Park and seen these buildings, they will be the main focus of this post. The image above is Unity Temple. I visited during a hot summer day and was the only person in the building so I was allowed to wander as I pleased. It s impossible to describe the feeling in that building but I ll try. There is a spirituality but it is not like that found in most churches. It is not as dark inside because the walls are wood and the stained-glass windows are mostly clear with colored geometrical patterns. Steps can be found in each corner of the chapel and the building exists on three levels, though it feels like only one floor from which you can somehow float upward. Wright designed the pews and light fixtures, as well as the building itself and the stained-glass windows. Below is a picture of the interior.
The next few images come from the neighborhoods surrounding Unity Temple and are all Wright-designed homes. The first was Wright s own home and studio when he lived in Illinois. When I visited, some work was being done to restore the front of the home but you should notice the sculptures above the door. Yep: designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. They re called The Bolders.
One of the most recognized homes that Wright designed is Falling Water, shown below. Notice how the building seems to fit into the land perfectly. The river actually runs underneath part of the house. Much of the building, as you can see, is made from stones that match those found in the river and the beams are brown like trees that surround the house. As an interesting side note, Frank Lloyd Wright s son, John Lloyd Wright, inventedlincoln Logs in 1918.
Frank Lloyd Wright Stained Glass Windows